FJM is a closed forum, but we welcome reader feedback. We're especially interested in corrections of our work, and research (usually number-crunching) that we may not be able to do ourselves. Please check the comments section as well, where we often post readers' opinions, and, less frequently, announce that we were wrong about something.
You can e-mail dak,Ken Tremendous,Junior,Matthew Murbles, or Coach individually.
What a week. Mrs. Tremendous and I moved last Sunday, to a slightly larger house right outside Partidge, KS, in South Hutchinson. The friendly confines of Partridge were a little too confining...because Mrs. Tremendous is expecting! That's right, friends. It is my great joy to announce that Mrs. Tremendous is with child, and that little Timothy McCarver Joseph Morgan HatBoy Tremendous will arrive in our world sometime next Spring. I am as proud as a basement-dwelling Insurance Pension Plan Monitor can be.
But back to what's really important: this blog. In my distracted absence, I have neglected my duties, and that ends today. Let's check in with Joe, as he checks in with his perpetually-confused readers.
Joe Morgan: It's been a very unusual postseason, with all the sweeps. They surprised me because most of the teams were evenly matched. It just tells how a bounce here and there or a call here or there can change everything.
Ken Tremendous: Please remember that when you talk about how important wins are as a pitching stat.
Jon (Audubon, NJ): What should the Rockies concetrate on over the next 9 days until the World Series starts?
KT: Oh, Jon. Your use of "concetrate" warms my heart.
Joe Morgan: It's going to be difficult to stay sharp, because hitting is something you need to keep your timing on. It's difficult to do because unless you're facing game action, it's tough to keep your timing. Intrasquad games don't do it very well because there is not the same intensity. It's probably easier for pitchers to stay sharp. In any case, it'll be difficult for them to stay at the level they're playing at now.
KT: Possibly. Also, their pitchers get a ton of rest and they can travel comfortably and have won 20 out or 21 or something, so they're sitting kind of pretty, I'd say. Who knows. What do you guys think of "Plaschke" as a first name?
Jug (Benicia): Which team has the best home field advantage Joe? Rockies, Red Sox or Indians? Each park is so unique?
Joe Morgan: I would say the Red Sox and Rockies because of the way the game is played in their parks. Fenway has the Green Monster, which they take advantage of, and balls fly out of Coors, so positioning is important. Those ballparks confer a unique advantage to the home team.
KT: Balls fly out of Coors Field...so positioning is important. It is important to position the outfielders in the left field bleachers. Then they can catch those balls. Also, the Indians, Red Sox, Rockies, and D-Backs had nearly identical home-away records this year. For what it's worth.
Seth (Denver, CO): Mr. Morgan, how do you feel about the Rockies current run compared to what you and the Reds accomplished in '76? Even as a Rockies fan I must admit the Reds' run in the playoffs, at least to this point, is more impressive, but do you see similarities in how the Rox have handled themselves during this streak and the great Reds' team that went undefeated in the postseason?
KT: How is Joe going to claim that being 6.5 out on Sep. 15th and 2 out with 2 to play and then winning a one-game playoff and sweeping two postseason series is not as impressive than what the 1976 Reds did? Let's find out!
Joe Morgan: I have to say that the Rockies' streak is very impressive, because in my opinion, a lot of the teams that they played were equally matched up against them. To win seven games against teams that are your equal is more impressive than what the Reds did, because that team set a lot of records and were "the team". The only other difference would be that the Rockies did it against teams they were familiar with.
Ah. Very clever. He says that the 1976 Reds were so good that nothing they did was really impressive because they were just so damn good.
Jeremy (Blacksburg, VA): how long do you think the game will be between slow pitching byrd and wakefield?
Joe Morgan: I don't think it'll be five hours and fifteen minutes, but obviously it will not be played at a fast pace. Wakefield will throw a lot of pitches, will walk some guys, and let up some steals, and Byrd will pitch carefully. It will not be a faster-paced game like last night's was.
KT: Time of game: 3:12. Time of previous game: 3:28. Why do people keep insisting that Wakefield is a slow pitcher?
Ryan (San Francisco): These Sox are killing me. Their offense is just not playing consistent baseball. Maybe they should stop trying to blast HR's and try a little small ball. With the number of guys in that lineup who could potentially reach Coopertown one day, there is not excuse to only get two runs off of Westbrook.
KT: Oh, Ryan. Such lovely Joe-baiting. Coopertown. Small ball. Maybe I'm just emotional because my wife has produced an heir to the Tremendous family name, but...God love ya!
Joe Morgan: I talked to David Ortiz yesterday, and this reflects back to the question about the Rockies and their 9-day layoff. David Ortiz told me they'd only played five games in 14 days. That doesn't keep you sharp as a hitter, although he's hit the ball as hard as possible each time. That could be part of the problem, having that many layoffs of games in between. They'll have another off day after today. It will be a problem for the Rockies as well.
KT: Indians don't seem to be having a problem. Maybe it's...good pitching? Nah.
Pete (Miami): Is Todd Helton a Hall of Fame player?
Joe Morgan: A Hall of Fame player is supposed to be the dominant player at your position during your era, so you could answer the question yourself using that criteria. Has he been the dominant first baseman in his era?
KT: I'm thinking Joe means: no, he is not. Now, Helton is only 33, and obviously the next few years will tell us yea or nay. But his career line is .332/.430/.583, and his career EqA is .315, and he's an excellent fielder. I'd say he has a decent shot. How about "Big Red Machine Tremendous?" Is that good?
Brosef (NJ): Is Kaz Matsui this years David Eckstein in the playoffs?
Joe Morgan: Any time you go into the playoffs or World Series, guys who are unheralded have a chance to stand out more, because they will pitch to them more. David Ortiz has walked a lot of times, for instance, so they will not pitch to him like they will to a guy like Kaz Matsui.
KT: For the last time, (not really), David Eckstein is heralded. He's wildly heralded. Everyone in the sports journalism world heralds David Eckstein. He is actually way way over-heralded. How else can a guy who was 8-41 with 2 extra-base hits in the 2006 NLDS and NLCS emerge from that postseason and be considered a clutch playoff hitter?
Andrew (Toledo): Does Ryan have a counting problem, I only see one sure fire bet for the Hall from the Sox (Manny) and one maybe (Ortiz). Is the Red Sox lineup overrated?
Joe Morgan: I'm starting to wonder if a lot of lineups are overrated during the regular season. The Yankees scored tons of runs not just this year, but last year as well, and they got shut down in the playoffs both years.
KT: You think the Yankees' line-up was overrated? Seriously? How? How can that be? They had seven regulars score 90+ runs. They led the league in runs. They led the league in hits. They led the league in HR and were 3rd in walks. They led the league in OBP, SLG, and thus OPS, and OPS+. They hadn't seen Carmona or Sabathia at all during the regular season***, and lost a best-of-five series to those dudes, and your conclusion is that the Yankee offense is overrated?!
Mike, Brunswick Ohio: Who do you think wins? Cleveland or Boston?
Joe Morgan: The edge goes to Cleveland, because I think their pitching is set up better than Boston's is.
And because when you wrote this they were up 2-1 in the series.
Jon (Audubon, NJ): Why do some players like Eric Byrnes get a pass when they have a bad series because they play the game hard, but guys like Alex Rodriguez get blasted by the fans and media for not being clutch? Shouldnt all players be judged the same way, as one series is such a small sample size of overall performance?
KT: Jon, you're insane. Take this "logic" and shove it, friend. Leave baseball analysis to the experts, and go look at some birds or something. Am I right?
Joe Morgan: Unfortunately, the world is not fair, and baseball is the same way. If you look at it another way, Jeter was three for 17 and grounded into three key doubles plays, but there's nothing said about him because he's done well before. You're right; Byrnes and the other players should be judged the same way on a series-by-series basis, but it's not the way of the world. Personally, I think all players play hard, especially in the playoffs, but players like Byrnes, who I like a lot, have effort that is easier to see than someone else's.
I'm suspicious. I don't think Joe wrote this. I think he had a coughing fit and Rob Neyer snuck into the booth or something.
Joe Morgan: The one thing I have noticed is that I don't think the umpiring has been as consistent in these few games that I've seen. I'm not used to it being this inconsistent. The umpring has been a little erratic in the games that I've seen, though I have not seen each and every game. Even some of the calls on the bases have not been consistent. Thanks for your questions!
If this is the last JoeChat of the year, I am very glad that we got a send-off with three "consistents" in one paragraph. At least he's consistent.
Also, by "consistent" here, I think he means "accurate."
The Yankees did, in fact,face Carmona twice during the regular season, once in each of the two series the clubs played. You can look things like this up on the Internet:
Wallace Matthews is my new hero. I haven't been this excited about a journalist since Junior discovered Bruce Jenkins.
In this edition of "Indefensible Positions," Matthews posits that ARod's salary might be better spent on middle relievers. Because...
$25M could buy lots of arms
A-Rod: Stats but no rings
In 1996, the Yankees got four home runs, 54 RBIs and a .308 batting average out of Charlie Boggs, the two-headed monster that held down third base that year.
In 1998, the third baseman's name was Scott Brosius and the numbers were 19, 98 and .300. In 1999, Brosius again: 17, 71, .247. In 2000: 16, 64, .230.
How dare you assail Scott Brosius. That man is a saint!
The Yankees won the World Series in every one of those years and in fact, won 14 World Series games in a row, stretching from Game 3 against the Braves in 1996 through Game 2 against the Mets in 2000.
Do you guys see where this is going? Are you as excited as I am?!
During the previous three seasons, the Yankees' third baseman has averaged 40 home runs and 119 RBIs and batted just about .300. Two seasons back, he won the AL MVP, and this season he has a great chance to put up the best numbers of a career that already is a first-ballot ticket to Cooperstown.
And with him, the Yankees have won precisely nothing.
Cue the band! Release the balloons! Strip down to your underwear, slap some warpaint on your faces, bang your drums and go wilding in the streets -- because Wallace Matthews is arguing that having an all-world 3rd baseman who hits a lot of HR and generally kicks ass is worse for your team than having a terrible third baseman who does none of these things.
It will be worth remembering this at the end of the year when general manager Brian Cashman is faced with the agonizing choice of burning more cash on Alex Rodriguez or bidding him a fond farewell.
No it won't. Because Cashman, unlike you, is not an idiot. Cashman will want to keep the 31 year-old surefire first-ballot Hall of Famer who is going to hit 70 HR this year despite the fact that he -- ARod -- is a weirdo and everyone hates him and there is an organized media movement -- of which you, Wallace Matthews, are a key player -- to drive him out of New York by arguing that Scott Brosius was better for the Yankees than he is.
There is nothing agonizing about deciding whether to keep Alex Rodriguez. If he isn't sick of NY, and wants to stay, you keep him. Because he's awesome. And because -- and this is the first of several times I will point this out, the Texas Rangers are paying you $7 million a year to help you keep him, because Tom Hicks is a bigger idiot than you, Wallace Matthews.
I am going to repeat that.
The Yankees, who have a $200m payroll, are being paid $7 million a year to help them retain Alex Rodriguez's services. And you still think this is a difficult decision?
To lose A-Rod would do me no good at all - who on Earth would I write about when the Yankees are slogging through some meaningless August tilt with the Devil Rays - but it might be the best thing the Yankees can do to right a ship that be sinkin', slowly, for the past seven years.
Honesty in journalism, here, folks. Who indeed would hacks like Matthews write about, were ARod gone? Who could allow them to drag out their tired old columns about the glory days of Scott Brosius? God forbid Matthews would have to work hard and form new opinions about things. That simply won't do. He needs ARod around, yelling things at rookies on the Blue Jays and saying slightly-off things in interviews about therapy so Matthews can put down his giant tumbler of Old Grandad, head to his file cabinet, blow dust off the A-D drawer, dig through his Brosius file, pull out a winner from 1998 that reads, "Yanks' 3rd Baseman About More than Stats," and do an old-fashioned cut-and-paste job. Then: more whiskey!
You can argue successfully that without Rodriguez, the Yankees would be even worse off than they are right now.
Correct.
You also can point out that without the burden of his salary, they can start shopping to fill the real needs of this team.
Incorrect. They have no limit to their salary. None. They said last year that they had a limit, and then they traded a pile of old hoodies for Bobby Abreu, who cost $13 million last year and $15m this year. Actually, let's just go ahead and list the most expensive Yankees this year:
Jason Giambi: $21m Derek Jeter: $20m Roger Clemens: $18.5m (ish) Alex Rodriguez: $17m (ish) Andy Pettitte: $16m Bobby Abreu: $15m Johnny Damon: $13m Hideki Matsui: $13m Jorge Posada: $12m Mike Mussina: $11m Mariano: $10.5m Carl Pavano: $10m
Are you seriously telling me that of these guys, ARod is the one not earning his pay? That his money is less well-spent than that spent on Giambi? Pavano? Matsui? Abreu? Mussina?
The question of whether he will opt out of his contract isn't even worth discussing. Originally, [the opt-out clause] was included to provide Rangers owner Tom Hicks with an ejector seat to escape from what remains the richest contract in the history of sports. Now it serves as a way for A-Rod and his agent, Scott Boras, to further cash in on what so far has been a phenomenal season...
To think Rodriguez and Boras won't invoke it at the end of this season, no matter what its outcome, is to believe that Donald Trump will wake up tomorrow and say to the latest Mrs. Trump, "Honey, I'm loving you so much, I'm gonna forget all about that pre-nup."
Ain't gonna happen.
Yikes. Leave the comedy to the professionals, Wallace. Stick to Brosiusian Hagiography.
...When the time comes to say deal or no deal, the Yankees would be wise to remember the lessons of 1996 and 1998 and 1999 and 2000. Those championships weren't won by slugging third basemen, or designated hitters built like Schwarzenegger, or prima donna starting pitchers who show up when the season is half over.
Here it comes...the moneyshot...
Those teams were built on small ball - incredibly, Bernie Williams' 30 homers in 2000 represents the peak of Yankees power for that era - on timely hitting, on role players who worked together like the cast of "The Sopranos," and on pitching.
Mostly, on relief pitching.
Okay. Everybody take a deep breath. We're going to get through this together.
First: Tino Martinez had 44 HR in 1997. Second: The 1998 Yankees had all nine starters and one reserve (Shane Spencer) in double-digits in HR. They hit 207 HR that year, which was fourth in the league. In 2000 they were 6th in the league. They were not a huge power team, but they hit their share of HR. Third: 2, 1, 1, 2, 5. Those are the AL ranks of the Yankees' teams in OBP, 1996 to 2000. That's what those teams were always based on, offensively. They walked a lot and grinded out at-bats and wore people down. Fourth: 1, 2, 4, 3, 4. Those were their yearly league ranks in K's by their pitchers. Their starters were very good, 1-5, all of those years, in striking out people and not walking people. Their relievers were good, except Mariano, who was impenetrably brilliant.
The Yankees did not win those championships with "smallball" or "smartball" or "intelli-ball" or "think-ball" or "genius-ball' or "Torre-ball" or "How'd-they-do-that?-ball." They won with great starting pitchers (Cone, Clemens, Pettitte, Wells, Key, Hernandez), a 9-man line-up that grinded out long at-bats and walked a lot and hit for good power, and the greatest closer in the history of baseball.
And these days, more than ever, that is where Yankees games are won and lost. In fact, throughout baseball, that is where most games are won and lost, with starters going six innings and managers jumping for the bullpen phone when the pitch clicker nears 100. For all the brilliance of Mariano Rivera, it is the grunts, the middle relievers, the Sean Henns and Brian Bruneys and Scott Proctors and Kyle Farnsworths, who have become the most important pitchers on the Yankees' staff. Too often this year, they have been much too important and not nearly good enough.
Yes, the problem with the 2007 Yankees so far was been Brian Bruney and his 28 IP with 25 K's, and Scott Proctor's 32.2 IP with a 1.30 WHIP. Not Kei Igawa's 30.2 IP with a 1.60 WHIP, or Carl Pavano disappearing, or Mike Mussina's 5.63 ERA, or having to rush Tyler Clippard up to start games, or having Darrell Rasner and Matt DeSalvo start 11 games, or Hughes' hamstring. I think it's Bruney.
The Yankees' relievers stink. But their starters haven't even been able to start. Except Pettitte and Wang, it's been Russian Roulette out there. (And by the way, I'd like to see Pettitte duplicate his first half while still striking out fewer than 5/9IP. Watching him revert to the mean is going to be very enjoyable for me.)
Anyway, the point is, I think the Yankees should let ARod walk and spend the money on middle relievers. What do you think, Wallace?
Saying goodbye to Rodriguez would be a gutsy and risky move, because he is one of the few players about whom it can be said there truly is no other. But they have done without his likes before and they can do it again.
And surely for every Rodriguez, there are dozens of Mike Stantons and Jeff Nelsons and David Weatherses out there. What the Yankees need to do now is take the money they will save on A-Rod and go find them.
Oh good. You agree with my crazy joke stance.
Read that last paragraph again. Then consider that at the bottom of this article, Newsday saw fit to print this:
Bank-breaking numbers
If A-Rod keeps up his current pace, these are his projected numbers for 162 games:
Hits 186 Runs 149 HRs 64 RBIs 167
as if to chastise Matthews themselves. Consider for a second, again, that the Yankees are being subsidized by Tom Hicks to the tune of $7m a year so that ARod can put up those numbers in the Stadium. Consider that Wallace Matthews thinks they should use the money on 6th inning set-up guys and 37 year-olds with WHIPs in the 1.50 range. Consider also that the Yankees do not need to free up any money to sign anyone, much less a reliever or two who cost like $2m a year. Consider that Alex Rodriguez's EqA is .354. Consider all of that, and then read this article again, and try to figure out why this article ever got written. And then consider why a mild-mannered claims adjuster for a mid-level insurance company would spend his entire morning dissecting it for a meta-critical blog that only he and a few of his stupid friends really care about.
This was just too good to pass up. It comes courtesy of a reader named Mike:
Of Bonds HR No. 747, manager Bruce Bochy said: "We needed a shot in the arm and he gave it to us."
He really ought to have thought that one through.
I imagine Bochy immediately turned beet red and started stammering like Woody Allen in "Sleeper."
EDIT: And now, an hour or so later, I add this from Kevin:
During the post game show of the Giants’ 4-3 win over Toronto on Monday, Mike Krukow and Dave Fleming went on and on about how a squeeze play won it for the Giants.
“That’s what these guys need to do,” said Krukow. “Small ball won it for them tonight. That, and of course the two-run homer from Barry Bonds that tied the game."
It's been awhile, but nothing gets the blood going like some Ozzie Guillen and some Darin Erstad -- now in one convenient South Side package!
First up, Ozziesmartball Smallballguillen, the professor of wrong, has commenced 2007 by continuing to be totally misguided about baseball things and is already being praised for it.
Ozzie: The appetite's back
Four words in, and you know the article's going to be a gem.
Sox skipper 'hungry' to make up for '06, starting with bunts
So problematic it's almost a parody of itself. The White Sox manager, a man who will play zero minutes of baseball this year, will singlehandedly "make up" for the last season (which he also managed) solely because he is "hungry" and he will do this by bunting, generally a poor strategy.
Guys, this is so crazy it just might work. I think we can blow this asteroid up with a crackerjack team of the world's best drillers. Come Saturday, Ozzie Guillen returns to his comfort zone.
That means White Sox pitchers and catchers report to ''Camp Ozzie 2007'' prepared to hear four-letter expletives and one-liners from their fiery manager. But jokes won't be the only thing Guillen is cracking this spring.
Throw in a whip this time around.
Throw in an iron maiden. Throw in a medieval torture rack. Draw and quarter Joe Crede in center field. It won't matter. 2006 wasn't about guys not being hungry. It was about pitching.
Your pitching wasn't as flukily good as it was in 2005. Got it?
Fact is, Guillen's offseason, which began as disappointment when the regular season ended and the Sox failed to defend their 2005 World Series title, turned to embarrassment by the holidays.
Because of the pitching. This is not hard to understand.
2005 White Sox ERA: 3.61 (3rd in baseball) 2006 White Sox ERA: 4.61 (21st in baseball)
In 2005 tons of guys had career years and the staff was extraordinarily healthy. You weren't so lucky in 2006. The end.
Now, Guillen says, it's hunger.
Good luck parlaying your metaphorical hunger into another set of Neal Cotts and Cliff Polittes. By the way, how much of Ozzie Guillen's managing genius can be attributed to these two randomly fluctuating middle relievers?
Neal Cotts 2005: ERA 1.94, WHIP 1.11 Neal Cotts 2006: ERA 5.17, WHIP 1.63
Cliff Politte 2005: ERA 2.00, WHIP 0.94 Cliff Politte 2006: ERA 8.70, WHIP 2.07
SO UNHUNGRY IN 2006.
'They got a little taste of the success and winning the World Series, and you want to get it back,'' he said recently of his players. ''They are mad because we didn't win it last year. They are hungry to do it again.''
Good. Great. Neal, Cliff, give me your hungry 2005 stats again. Oh wait. You're not even on the team anymore.
That's also when the phone calls to bench coach and good friend Joey Cora became more frequent. Cora has been Guillen's right-hand man the last three seasons and is in charge of putting together the Sox' spring-training program.
The continued message to Cora was, ''Let's get back to small ball.'' Far too often in 2006, Sox hitters failed to move the runner or get the bunt down in key situations.
Yee-ha! Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. I cannot believe that anyone believes that the problem with the 2006 White Sox was a lack of smallball -- and yet the only person whose opinion matters believes just that. Bunting? The team ERA went up an entire run and we're talking about bunting?
Plus, Jesus, just take one second and look at this:
2005 White Sox Runs Scored: 741 (13th in baseball) 2006 White Sox Runs Scored: 868 (3rd in baseball)
I guess what I'm saying is your offense made a quantum leap forward in 2006. Your offense was the only reason you weren't 15 games out of the playoff race. At the Tucson, Ariz., training facility, Cora has designated a special field that will be used for ''Bunting 101,'' and only a few Sox players have a pass.
The good ones. "Everyone has to go through it besides [Jermaine] Dye, [Paul] Konerko and [Jim] Thome."
Exactly.
''We have a different way. We're going to play games -- give bunt situations, give pointers, the way they used to teach. We're going to make it fun, but they're not going to [expletive] around. I'll be in charge on that field because we have to do stuff better.''
Not saying this stuff is going to hurt the team -- okay, it might -- but seriously, this seems like a misuse of time and resources. The team was third in runs scored last year. Thome and Dye should be worse than last year, so there's that, but the answer to a problem that doesn't exist is not bunting. It's not.
I would also say that in a certain way, practicing bunting over and over again sort of is [expletive] around. Guillen also will play mad scientist this spring, moving the top and bottom of the lineup around regularly in hopes of finding a solid formula.
Guillen will play mad scientist with a lineup that scored the third most runs in baseball to the New York Yankees and the Cleveland Indians. My guess? Erstad hits 2nd, 6th, and 8th and OPSes a hungry .590 in 1800 at bats.
While Guillen has a hands-off mentality regarding the pitching staff, he and pitching coach Don Cooper do have a message for the entire staff, as well as the minor-leaguers.
That message is: magically rekindle the improbable run of health and quality you experienced in 2005 that made people think Ozzie Guillen knew what the hell he was doing.
---
And now, Part 2, wherein we once again encounter the notion that the White Sox' offense and its lack of smallness was the reason for their non-championship-winning ways. Plus, Erstad.
TUCSON, Ariz. – Darin Erstad and the White Sox. Now there’s a match made in OzzieBall heaven.
Now there's a giant turd of a lede.
He’d run over your mother to catch a flyball, and he just might run over his own mother if she tried to block home plate.
He just might punt your mother in the tits because when this guy punts he punts to win and he sometimes thinks breasts are footballs.
His body is beaten up, not from his days as a college football player
(punter)
at Nebraska or a high school hockey star in North Dakota
Holy. Shitfuck. Add that to the Darin Erstad resume, quick. Opens up a whole new world of toughness metaphors and similies. "Darin Erstad plays baseball like he plays football. And he plays football like he plays hockey. With a stick that he uses to hit people with."
From now on, The Punter shall be referred to as The Highschoolhockeystar.
When healthy, Erstad is similar to Aaron Rowand, the popular, fence-crashing center fielder who was the classic “grinder” for the ’05 Sox. Except Erstad is faster and stronger.
And he parlays that speed and strength into hitting really, really atrociously. Like scary bad. Pokey Reese shit. I'm exaggerating. But here are Erstad's post-2000 EqA seasons: .252, .256, .241, .274, .259, .219.
“The fans of Chicago,” Guillen said, “will appreciate the way this kid plays.”
I bet they will. Dirty-hat type guy. Still: .252, .256, .241, .274, .259, .219.
Yes, the White Sox lost their way and relied too much on home runs last season, but they hit a lot of homers in 2005, too.
Here we go again. They lost their way to the tune of 127 additional runs. Adding a crazy-good Jim Thome will do that.
The difference? In ’05, they were aggressive on the bases. They bunted. They hit behind runners. They broke up double plays. They risked bodily harm to make sensational catches. They constantly put pressure on opponents.
They scored 127 fewer runs. They rode a scintillating pitching staff to unwarranted acclaim. They subjected us to way too much Ozzie Guillen.
They were 13th in runs scored. They scored fewer runs than the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. They on-based worse than the Cubs and the Orioles and the same as the Nationals and the Astros and the Pirates.
Offensively, they weren't that good. And now we have to hear about how Ozzie Guillen is revamping his far better 2006 offense to be more like the shittier, less effective, decidedly mediocre 2005 version.
How hard is it to look up team run totals? What does it take? 10 seconds? And yet no one ever seems to do it but us, when discussing the White Sox. Unbelievable.
At the end of the day, their style of play: their lack of speed, their failure to play smallball -- the ability to play smallball -- another season, will that lack of execution or even having that in your hip pocket to pull out from time to time ... will it cost them in the postseason?
Guess which team he's talking about?
I'm going to lean toward the "it's not the lack of smallball, it's the fact that they got 2-hit in Game Three and allowed 5 and 8 runs in Games One and Two, respectively" camp.
Reader Chris points to this article from the AP, of all places, which helps us define the elusive term "Smallball." It's a recap of the Yankees' 14-3 drubbing of the ChiSox yesterday. The first paragraph reads:
Instead of swinging for the fences, the New York Yankees put down a string of splendid bunts and beat Ozzie Guillen's White Sox at their own game of small ball.
Then it talks about how the Yankees bunted a few times. It also includes these sentences:
Derek Jeter and Bernie Williams each doubled twice...
Andy Phillips homered and knocked in four runs...
Even little Bubba Crosby got in on it, hitting his first home run since a game-winning shot last Sept. 19 against Baltimore.
See? Smallball! It's about doing the little things, like scoring 14 runs on 14 hits, including five doubles and two dingers. It's also, apparently, somehow about having the other team play bad baseball:
Jason Giambi hit a two-run single, leadoff batter Johnny Damon scored three times and the Yankees took advantage of some shoddy Chicago defense to build an 8-0 lead for Mussina (11-3).
...in the fourth...[n]obody covered first base on Miguel Cairo's bunt single, leaving runners at first and second. Damon followed with a hard, short-hop bunt to Konerko. He wheeled and threw wide to third, where the ball glanced off the glove of fill-in third baseman Alex Cintron, who was charged with an error that loaded the bases.
That's what makes Smallball such a great approach to the game: all you have to do is keep bunting, and the other team will make a lot of errors, and then...you win!
More like Smell-Ball! Yeah, I said it. I think Small-Ball should be called Smell-Ball. Because it smells smelly, like a bad smell does. And while that's perhaps the stupidest thing a human being has thought, uttered, or written in quite some time, it's no less valid an argument than much of the drivel in Thomas Boswell's Washington Post article For Many Teams, Small-Ball Efforts Are Being Richly Rewarded.
Thomas?
Welcome to the era of baseball on a budget. It's time for brains and judgment to have their day, not just juice and financial muscle.
Cool! So you're going to talk about brains like Billy Beane's and Terry Ryan's? Guys who use their judgment to build good baseball teams on a budget? Tell me you're going to do that, Bozzy old friend.
This period in the game's history is just beginning and none too soon. But you can see it everywhere, from the mid-market teams in last year's World Series to the fundamentally sound, unselfish teams that dominated the World Baseball Classic.
Oh, Boz. Why? You're going to talk about the White Sox, aren't you? And chemistry? We're going to be lectured on chemistry and oh, maybe sparkplugs and table-setters and nobly giving yourself up for the good of The Game.
The Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, Angels and a few other mega-market teams won't be joining the rest of the sport in the frugal fun. They know that big money will still have years when it can buy the pot, as it always has. Big is still better. But not nearly as much better as it has been in recent times. For many other franchises, especially the 15 or so teams that are not among the very richest or the very poorest, these are days when dollars well spent can put you in the postseason. Or, as the White Sox and Astros proved last October, get you a date in the World Series.
White Sox. Check. And wait: your premise is that mid- and small-market teams will experience a Renaissance for some reason? I'm sure you have a well thought out explanation for all this bluster.
As if to underline the point, the WBC illustrated every theme from last year's postseason. The small-ball and off-speed pitching masters from Japan and South Korea, as well as the divinely precise, unselfish Cubans prospered while the U.S. team went home early, beaten by Canada, South Korea and Mexico as the rich Americans waited for home runs that didn't arrive often enough.
No! No no no no no. The WBC showed that in a single-elimination baseball tournament, weird, dumb stuff can happen. It was fun, sure, seeing a team of shaggy-haired Korean dudes beat down A-Rod and Jeter, but does anyone think that South Korea actually fielded a better baseball team than the United States? Not even you, Thomas Boswell, an 89-year-old man with Nostalgia Glasses on, could believe such a thing. And let's address once again the argument that Japan won the tournament with small-ball, guts, and math-related sneak attacks. Japan hit 10 home runs in 8 games. The U.S., 9 in 6 games. The U.S. finished second in SLG, Japan third. Japan finished second in OPS to Canada (!). And those scrappy, crafty Japanese contact hitters averaged more strikeouts per plate appearance than the selfish, steroided-up U.S. sluggers (0.144 to 0.132). Probably waiting for those home runs to show up. (An argument that I've never understood. Who waits for anything in baseball? You're telling me Vernon Wells goes up there thinking, "F this, I'm just gonna strike out and then wait for Griffey to hit a home run. I'm a lazy dum-dum.") As for Japanese pitching: yeah, I bet there aren't as many Japanese pitchers who can bring the nasty like American WBCers Roger Clemens and Gary Majewski, but who was the MVP of the whole tournament? Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka, who throws 96 mph cheese on a good day. And wait a minute, just how "divinely precise" were the Cubans? Last I saw them, Yuliesky Gourriel was chucking a ball into the dugout and they were leading the tournament in errors.
In the first inning of the WBC title game, Japan paved the way to its championship with four runs without a single hard-hit ball. You'd have thought that Scott Podsednik, Tadahito Iguchi, Jermaine Dye, Paul Konerko and A.J. Pierzynski -- the modest top five hitters in the White Sox' order last October -- were playing for Sadaharu Oh's club. Draw a walk, lay down a bunt, steal a base, hit behind the runner, beat out an infield hit, then murder 'em with a five-hop ground ball into center field.
Yeah, about those modest top five hitters ... I don't know if you follow baseball (you seem like more of an architecture guy), but Paul Konerko hit 40 home runs last year. 41 the year before. In fact, he hit a home run every 14.4 at bats, good for 6th in the AL. But you're right, Scott Podsednik is modest.
Why, the style reminded you exactly of the best feel-good story of the first five months of the '05 season -- the spunky, one-run wonder, low-payroll Nationals fighting for a playoff spot before they got tired, got hurt and got on each other's nerves.
Is that what happened? They got on each other's nerves? Are you sure it wasn't the fact that they were beating their Pythagorean by a significant amount (probably through blind luck) mid-way through the season, and then that the cruel reality that they were allowing more runs than they scored finally set in, no matter what they currently measured on the Thomas Boswell Spunk Meter?
No, you're right. Nerves.
In this post-steroid era (with the number of positive drug tests finally under 1 percent), it has become clear that pitching and defense, as well as more versatile, diverse offenses, once again have a place at the top of the sport. Especially in tense, lower-scoring venues like the late-season playoff races, the chilly postseason and the WBC.
This is clear because a) the White Sox won the World Series one year and b) Japan won the WBC, a tournament in which they went 5 and 3. (Korea was 6-1; the Dominican Republic, a team of monstrous home-run-hitting sluggers if there ever was one, was 5-2.) Game, set, match, Boswell.
In other words, if you can't afford a $100 million payroll, it's a viable time to be an affluent but not obscenely rich team. For example, clubs like both the Nats and Orioles should, in the future, be able to pay enough to compete on this more level field.
You haven't remotely proven that things are any different now than they were, say, three years ago.
It's no accident that the rise of mid-market teams has coincided with the decrease in performance-enhancing drugs. The artificially inflated sluggers and strikeout pitchers of recent years commanded the most astronomical salaries. Plenty of the richest didn't cheat. But too many did. To reach the top of the heap, some teams had to hold their noses and pay inflated salaries for superstars with muscles-from-a-bottle. Now, that's changing.
A hand-waving argument. Actually, most hand-waving arguments would be ashamed to be in the same room as this argument. According to Game of Shadows, Barry Bonds didn't start juicing until after the 1998 season. We can assume that some guys were doing it before then (McGwire, Sosa, I'm looking at you). But were those guys' teams winning championships? Were the Yankees' dynasty teams loaded up with "artificially inflated sluggers and strikeout pitchers"? It doesn't seem like they were helped all that much more than other teams were by steroids. It seems like San Francisco, St. Louis, and Chicago were the main beneficiaries. Plus, look at who's won championships since 2000: the D-Backs, the Angels, the Marlins, the Red Sox, and the White Sox. Besides the Sox and their offensive juggernaut, where are the 'roided-up mega-rich franchises that you say ruled the world until last year?
Because of this transition from power ball to a more balanced blend of brawn and moxie,
You still haven't proven that. And moxie? Who are you, a guy in a film noir movie?
we're entering a period of semi-frugal baseball. No, the rich teams still aren't like the rest of us. But they're closer. The sport doesn't have parity. (Who wants it? Too boring.) But the Marlins did win the '03 title with an Opening Day payroll of only $48,750,000, less than a third of the Yankees whom they beat in the Series. And the Twins and Athletics, among others, have contended often with modest payrolls.
Right. So you're saying the new "semi-frugal" period started in or before 2003? What?
The teams that spot the next trend most quickly and adapt their rosters to capitalize on it will get the most value for their dollars in coming years. So far, the Nationals and Orioles certainly seem to be early adapters.
And the next trend is fielding a team of Pod-eck-ggins-es, if I'm not mistaken. And signing a guy to play a position he doesn't want to play. A guy who can't get on base to save his life. With a .265 OBP away from Ameriquest Field last year. And who made $7.5 million last year. That's value.
Baltimore has decided to build around its five-man pitching rotation of Daniel Cabrera, Erik Bedard, Rodrigo Lopez, Kris Benson and Bruce Chen, coached by ex-Braves pitching maestro Leo Mazzone. Adding Benson to replace disappointing Sidney Ponson was the team's top offseason priority, rather than getting more power hitters to replace Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro. Look what rotation depth did for the White Sox, whose five starters completely shut down foes last October.
Rotation depth did nothing for the White Sox. Their top five starters combined for 152 starts, so they didn't really need any depth. That's right. 152. Brandon McCarthy started the other 10. Oh, you're talking about having five good starters, not guys who can start outside the top five? Five starters who "completely shut down foes last October"? Well, I know for a fact that the White Sox only used four starters in the playoffs because I looked it up using a computer that talks to other computers through a cable in the wall.
In Washington, the Nationals are totally committed to the thesis that times have changed. Will the Nats move in the fences at cavernous RFK Stadium? "No way," said General Manager Jim Bowden who has spent the last year retooling his personnel to suit his park. "We want line-drive gap hitters with extra-base power who can have a high average, not fly ball [home run] hitters," said Bowden. "There are a lot of hits out there in our [big] outfield. The long fly balls get run down. The line drives don't."
I would have liked it better if the paragraph ended "No way," said General Manager Jim Bowden, who has spent the last year making horrendous, arbitrary trades, optioning promising hitters like Ryan Church, jettisoning OBP machines like Brad Wilkerson, acquiring OBP/clubhouse poison like Alfonso Soriano, and generally making a mess of things and ruining the future of baseball in our nation's capital. "There are a lot of hits out there in our [big] outfield," said Bowden.
It's no accident that Vinny Castilla, Preston Wilson and Wilkerson -- who all fit the mold of big-fly all-or-nothing sluggers who will never hit close to .300 in a big ballpark -- have left the organization. The Nats don't think they suit the dimensions of RFK or the new Nationals Park, which has been designed at the team's request to be "a pitcher's park."
Brad Wilkerson has a career high of 32 home runs, and in the three years before he went to Washington, he OBPed .370, .380, and .374. That guy is a total cancer, an all-or-nothing jerkwad who can't stop swinging for the fences like some preening juiced-up monster who hates team unity and grit and sweat and hustle-heart. He once promised a sick kid in the hospital he would sacrifice bunt a guy over but then swung for the fences and hit a home run like some kind of asshole.
If the Nats play with the team unity and fundamental soundness of the first half of '05, then all these theories may have some meaning.
They'll be about .500 if they do that.
However, if their defense remains as unfocused as it has been in Florida and if their lineup lacks internal chemistry, as it did in '05, then all the Nats' smart talk won't count for much.
Internal chemistry? Internal chemistry??? I think that's the name of the new Bush album. You guys listen to Bush, right? Hello? 1996, are you there?
Why some lineups are combustible and others are inert is still one of the game's mysteries. Who'd have thought obscure Podsednik and Iguchi were the proper table setters for a world champion?
I like that after all that, he chalks up the potency of a baseball team's offense to "hey, guys, it's just one of those mysteries!"
Don't count out the power of a buck in any sport, certainly not baseball. But, as Opening Day arrives, at least 20 teams are firmly convinced that their budgets will not prevent them from making the playoffs. Once you reach October, as teams like the '02 Angels, '03 Marlins and '05 White Sox showed, nobody weighs your wallet before handing you the World Series trophy.
And nobody weighs your brain before you write an article about baseball.
Hold on, I just got an email with the subject "Re: Tom Boswell's brain weight." It's 1375 grams. Huh. That's about average. How about that.
My good friend Mr. M. Stone, Esq., B.A. (Harvard U.), M.A. (Columbia B.S., Class of '08), whose reticence in re: posting for this blog is one of the great mysteries of my life, made an excellent point today, namely: no one has talked about the fact that Japan might have won the WBC in part because their pitchers have kind of crazy deliveries, some of them, and when you have to face pitchers with crazy deliveries for the first time it is often hard to hit them. (C.f. Nomo, Hideo, and Willis, Dontrelle, and Duque Hernandez, El.) Also, they hit more HR than any team in the tournament. But what do we know?
South Korea, too. Let's not forget Kim, Byung-Hyun (a.k.a. Kim, B.H. and for some reason a.k.a. Kim, B.K.). It seemed like every South Korean and Japanese pitcher had an unorthodox delivery or at the very least, a weird hitch in their windup.
It's March 29. Opening Day is hours away. And that means it's time for unthinking, pointless drivel to come pouring out of the laptops of the BBWAA. Even from normally semi-reliable people like Ken Rosenthal, who wrote this little number, entitled: Small Ball is Yielding Big Results.
Excited just by the title? Me too!
I suggest reading the article on the FoxSports site -- it has lots of cute photos of people bunting!
Time to play ball. Real ball, not the mutant, pharmaceutically enhanced monstrosity that supposedly saved the sport.
Some call it small ball. Others call it a return to fundamentals. Still others call it a pitching-and-defense revival.
Whatever the catchphrase, it translates to winning baseball.
Oh, the rhetoric! I imagine Ken Rosenthal standing at a podium, lips tightly pursed politician-style, imagining himself a Leader of Men, addressing thousands of hearty non-computer-owning salt-of-the-earth American baseball fans, clutching American Flags that display not 50 stars, but rather small pictures of Scott Podsednik bunting. And he's staring down his constituency, and telling them in no uncertain terms that by God these home run-happy stat nerds will take away his love of sac bunts and stolen bases and Darin Erstad's football-playing mentality only by prying them out of his cold, dead hands.
Shortstop Derek Jeter talks wistfully about the Yankees' four championship teams under manager Joe Torre, recalling that they did all of the little things right. The World Baseball Classic drove the point home once more, with the Asian teams, in particular, demonstrating the value of execution over physical talent, of brains over brawn.
Chalk up another vaguely racist "compliment" for those brainy Asians. Who, by the way, had the most HR of any team in the WBC, the 3rd most walks, and the second highest OPS. Brawn, anyone?
Play ball. Play it right. The fans won't go away.
Write stuff. Write it in overblown self-important rhetoric. I will make fun of you.
Chicks dig the long ball, always will, and so does everyone else. But the notion that fans are power junkies, too simple to grasp the game's subtleties — it's an insult. Major League Baseball isn't alone in dumbing down its product; virtually every sports, entertainment and media company does. But what baseball fans want most is to see their favorite team win.
Right. Which is why smart teams don't try to steal bases and play "small ball." You're conflating good pitching, "doing the little things," "fundamentals," and "execution," and calling it all "small ball." Good pitching is not "small ball." Good pitching is good pitching, and every team needs it. "Fundamentals" are important, too. But most of that other stuff -- bunting, stealing bases if you're not really good at it, etc. -- hurts your team. It causes your team to score fewer runs. Smart teams do not eschew such self-mutilating strategies because they believe their fans are too dumb to appreciate it. They do it because embracing them makes it harder to win.
I like that it was not enough for people to misinterpret "Moneyball" as "strike out a lot and try always to hit home runs." Now, it seems, being a "power junky" (read: "Moneyball") team, and thus not doing things like bunt runners over, also means you don't care about "fundamentals." As if part of the Moneyball philosophy (not explicitly cited here, but come on -- that's what he's talking about) is specifically not caring about hitting cutoff men or something.
Teams like the Braves, Cardinals and Angels are successful year after year not because they score the most runs, though their offenses usually are strong. No, they succeed because they play the game properly, rarely beating themselves. In an age of increased parity, the little things become even more important. As any statistical analyst will tell you, the big things matter most. But a game, even a pennant race, can turn on a well-timed bunt or well-executed relay.
Any game can turn on anything. A lot of games turn on HR, for example. I'm thinking in particular of an Astros-Cardinals playoff game -- a few playoff games, actually -- last year. Baseball games are crazy explosions of random chances and impossible-to-predict scenarios. The surest way to maximize your winning percentage is by stressing OBP and SLG offensively, and fundamentals defensively, which, despite the message of this article, are not mutually exclusive. One way to minimize your chance to win, offensively, is by bunting a lot.
Also, I like referring to the Cardinals' recent NL offensive juggernauts as "pretty strong."
Jim Tracy, the new Pirates' manager, has spent much of the spring talking to his hitters about taking smarter approaches, adjusting to situations. The Cubs, by acquiring players like center fielder Juan Pierre and right fielder Jacque Jones, mimicked the White Sox, improving their athleticism and speed. A's general manager Billy Beane, a leading proponent of offensive efficiency, has built a contender, once again, around starting pitching.
1. Shouldn't every manager always spend Spring Training "talking to his hitters about taking smarter approaches, adjusting to situations?" You can't tell people to hit more home runs. You can tell people to "take smart approaches," like taking pitches at the right times and so forth. 2. Juan Pierre and Jacque Jones had OBPs of .326 and .319 last year, respectively, so, yes, the Cubbies are mimicking the White Sox, but not by improving anything. 3. I don't know what you mean to imply by the last comment about Billy Beane. He has always been a leading proponent of offensive efficiency, yes, and he has always built his team around starting pitching, so you have told me nothing.
The season begins with yet another steroid uproar, but the game — by every quantifiable measure — has never been healthier. It is widely accepted that the home-run race between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa in 1998 fueled the sport's comeback from the strike of '94 and '95. That notion, too, gives fans too little credit. People love this sport, can't get enough of it. In time, the fans would have come back, anyway.
And so a new season begins, a season of baseball, not powerball. MLB is returning to its roots not because of more stringent drug testing — some players still will use performance enhancers — but because teams are going back to the time-honored methods of success.
Can you hear it? "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" is fading in behind Rosenthal...the Podsednik flags wave in the breeze...a trained hawk circles above and starts to dive...the crowd buzzes in anticipation of the big finish...
To small ball. To smart ball. To playing the game right.
